Page 239 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

CHAPTER XIII. WHAT THE

SEAWEED SUGGESTED.

he question gave the marooned party new hopes. Mau-
Trice Frere, with his usual impetuosity, declared that the
project was a most feasible one, and wondered—as such
men will wonder—that it had never occurred to him before.
‘It’s the simplest thing in the world!’ he cried. ‘Sylvia, you
have saved us!’ But upon taking the matter into more ear-
nest consideration, it became apparent that they were as yet
a long way from the realization of their hopes. To make a
coracle of skins seemed sufficiently easy, but how to obtain
the skins! The one miserable hide of the unlucky she-goat
was utterly inadequate for the purpose. Sylvia—her face
beaming with the hope of escape, and with delight at hav-
ing been the means of suggesting it—watched narrowly the
countenance of Rufus Dawes, but she marked no answering
gleam of joy in those eyes. ‘Can’t it be done, Mr. Dawes?’ she
asked, trembling for the reply.
The convict knitted his brows gloomily.
‘Come, Dawes!’ cried Frere, forgetting his enmity for an
instant in the flash of new hope, ‘can’t you suggest some-
thing?’
Rufus Dawes, thus appealed to as the acknowledged
Head of the little society, felt a pleasant thrill of self-satis-

For the Term of His Natural Life